The Aesthetics of Taine and of Grosse have been called sociological.
Seeing that any true definition of sociology as a science is impossible,
for it is composed of psychological elements, which are for ever
varying, we do not delay to criticize the futile attempts at definition,
but pass at once to the objective results attained by the sociologists.
This superstition, like the naturalistic, takes various forms in
practical life. We have, for instance, Proudhon (1875), who would hark
back to Platonic Aesthetic, class the aesthetic activity among the
merely sensual, and command the arts to further the cause of virtue, on
pain of judicial proceedings in case of contumacy.
But M. Guyau is the most important of sociological aestheticians. His
works, published in Paris toward the end of last century, and his
posthumous work, entitled _Les problemes de l'Esthetique contemporaine_,
substitute for the theory of play, that of _life_, and the posthumous
work above-mentioned makes it evident that by life he means social life.
Art is the development of social sympathy, but the whole of art does not
enter into sociology. Art has two objects; the production of agreeable
sensations (colours, sounds, etc.) and of phenomena of psychological
induction, which include ideas and feelings of a more complex nature
than the foregoing, such as sympathy for the personages represented,
interest, piety, indignation, etc.
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